16 September CEEC Environment Ministers – European Commission Informal

Date: 19/09/1996

ENVIRONMENT Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard and Foreign Affairs Commissioner Hans van den Broek told ten Central and Eastern European environment ministers that they had to start improving their environmental record now if they were to join the EU early next century. The meeting aimed to dispel illusions that applicant CEECs only need to comply with environmental legislation highlighted in the 1995 White Paper on enlargement. “The White Paper only covers 20&percent; of the Community environmental acquis,” stressed a Commission official. “We made it clear today that the other 80&percent; was equally important.”

BJERREGAARD outlined 11 major bottlenecks in the CEECs' drive to comply with EU legislation. They included a lack of staff, financial resources and costs assessments, weak private/public burden-sharing policies and inefficient enforcement mechanisms. Within the EU, she said, a lack of coordination between bilateral and multilateral contacts was causing difficulties.

FOR their part, CEEC ministers complained that the Commission was inflexible, and difficult to contact. The Commission promised to set up an information hot-line which would complement other schemes to bring the EU closer to its potential members as soon as possible. The Commissioners also said they would set officials working on a strategic assessment of what the CEECs needed to do before joining so as to, in the words of one official, “avoid unpleasant surprises during negotiations”.

A MEETING at director-general and junior minister level on 20 September will suggest practical ways ahead. A fuller assessment will begin once DGXI, the Directorate-General for the environment, has analysed relevant parts of the CEECs' responses to the vast questionnaire they completed in July. Officials say these discussions will symbolise the 'next stage' in the CEECs' bid to join the EU.

WHETHER the difficulties faced by CEECs in the environmental field could delay accession is still an open question. Participants agreed to begin drawing up estimates on how long it would take the CEECs to reach a sufficient level of environmental harmony with existing member states. Asked whether environmental shortfalls alone would be enough to prevent the CEECs from joining, Bjerregaard said: “I am absolutely sure - yes.” But officials point to significant ambiguity in EU policy. The principle is that at the date they join, the CEECs must be able to apply the acquis communautaire. In reality, there will be transition periods which will be open to negotiation. Officials suggest the environment will not be a major blocking issue. “The better the case that the CEECs make for themselves that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, the easier it will be for them to join the EU,” said one official. “Some environmental regulations are more important than others.”

CEEC ministers reported that they faced particular difficulties in the fields of waste and water management, and the energy sector. The Commission stressed that it was important for applicants to devise their own strategies for solving these problems. Their seven priorities should be: public health, protection of species/habitats, transboundary impacts, framework legislation, general/ horizontal measures, non-product related internal market impacts and the implementation of existing international obligations. The picture was not all negative, however. The CEECs have large areas of unspoilt land as well as black spots, and many are already investing intensively in environmental projects. Ministers said different countries had very different situations and needed to be treated individually.

THE Commissioners recommended that future environmental proposals should take account of the CEECs' situation. That did not necessarily imply that directives would lack teeth, however. Bjerregaard pointed to Commission proposals to limit car emissions (the Auto-Oil Programme) as the regionally-sensitive type of approach that could be taken with applicant countries.